Mangaluru: Three Sri Ram Sena activists arrested for attack on school

Mangaluru, Jul 31: Three Hindutva activists have been arrested by Mangaluru police on Sunday in connection with an anti-Arabic raid' on a private school in the taluk. A few more miscreants are likely to be arrested.

The arrested have been identified as Santosh, Nitin and Dinesh, all said to be activists of Sri Ram Sena, an extremist Hindutva outfit which is responsible for several vigilante attacks and communal clashes in Karnataka.

The arrested trio was part of around 40 miscreants who stormed St Thomas Aided Higher Primary School at Padu Bondanthila near Neermarga on the outskirts of the city on Saturday morning, questioning why Arabic language was being taught.

Even though the miscreants initially had managed to pressurise the school administration against lodging complaint, later a case was registered at jurisdictional Mangaluru Rural Police Station.

City Police Commissioner M. Chandra Sekhar said they have registered cases of trespass and rioting against the Sri Ram Sena activists. Assistant Commissioner of Police (South) N.S. Shruthi on Saturday visited the school and gathered information from the management.

According to Melwyn Braggs, the headmaster of the School, they had been teaching German, French and Arabic to students for the last few years. This year, parents had, during the parent-teacher meeting, said they did not want French and German but wanted Arabic and karate classes to continue, he said.

While karate is taught on Friday, Arabic classes are held on Saturday, and the school management had made arrangements for teachers to teach these subjects. “Attendance to these classes was purely voluntary,” Mr. Braggs said, adding that only about 40 of the 59 students of classes 6 and 7 were attending the Arabic class. He rubbished the allegations of forcible and compulsory Arabic class.

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